Matthew 2:13-23

The Voice

¹³After the wise men left, a messenger of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Messenger of the Lord (to Joseph): Get up, take the child and His mother, and head to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you it is safe to leave. For Herod understands that Jesus threatens him and all he stands for. He is planning to search for the child and kill Him. But you will be safe in Egypt.

¹⁴So Joseph got up in the middle of the night; he bundled up Mary and Jesus, and they left for Egypt.^[a]

¹⁶After a few months had passed, Herod realized he’d been tricked. The wise men were not coming back. Herod, of course, was furious. He simply ordered that all boys who lived in or near Bethlehem and were two years of age and younger be killed. He knew the baby King was this age because of what the wise men told him.

Herod knows ordinary babies will die in this purge, but he doesn’t care—Herod is not so much cold-blooded as pragmatic, willing to do whatever is necessary to kill this new supposed King. And so all those other baby boys die. But, of course, Herod’s plan ultimately fails. He doesn’t know the baby Savior has been whisked to safety in Egypt.

¹⁷This sad event had long been foretold by the prophet Jeremiah:

¹⁸A voice will be heard in Ramah,
    weeping and wailing and mourning out loud all day and night.
The voice is Rachel’s, weeping for her children,
    her children who have been killed;
    she weeps, and she will not be comforted.^[b]

¹⁵Joseph, Mary, and Jesus stayed in Egypt until Herod died. This fulfilled yet another prophecy. The prophet Hosea once wrote, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

¹⁹And after Herod died, a messenger of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt:

Messenger of the Lord: ²⁰You may go home now. Take the child and His mother and go back to the land of Israel, for the people who were trying to take the child’s life are now dead.

²¹So Joseph got up and took Mary and Jesus and returned to the land of Israel. ²²Soon he learned that Archelaus, Herod’s oldest and notoriously brutal son, was ruling Judea. Archelaus might not be any friendlier than Herod had been. Joseph was simply afraid. He had another dream, and in this dream, he was warned away from Judea; so Joseph decided to settle up north in a district called Galilee, ²³in a town called Nazareth. And this, too, fulfilled what the prophets have taught, “The Savior will be a Nazarene.”